Description: For over a decade, life insurers have been challenged by a low interest rate environment, making it difficult to find investments with adequate yield, manage corporate spreads, and offer competitive products to consumers. While interest rates are still low compared to the early 2000’s, volatility in rates over the past year, during which the 10-year U.S. Treasury rate has increased by nearly 100 basis points, could indicate a longer-term trend of rising rates. What would a rising rate environment imply for life insurance writers? Insurers able to react to interest rate changes with agility can remain relevant in an evolving economy, protecting themselves and their policyholders. This article addresses risks and considerations faced by insurers with respect to in-force retention, pricing and product mix, and reinsurance and mergers & acquisitions.

Description: Feature article discussing how technology is affecting the reinsurance business.

Description: Exploration of the relationship between insuretech and reinsurance in Life and P&C

Description: Haven’t we all been watching for the next big financing transaction and wondering whether it will be done by a reinsurer or an insurer? Also will it support XXX reserve redundancies or will the market have finally “cracked the code” for the financing of AXXX reserves?

Description: We look in this article at the challenges which life insurance companies operating in a low interest environment have to face.

Description: Chairperson’s column discussing systemic risk.

Description: The financial sector should provide financial security and allocate capital well. As its preeminent professionals actuaries have particular responsibilities.

Description: This paper aims to help financial and insurance practitioners better recognize, assess, and respond to large scale, large impact, rare events (LSLIRE’s) which are occurrences currently often wrongly labeled as being unpredictable black swans. A black swan, as Nassim Taleb defines it in his popular book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House & Penguin (2007-2010 2nd. Ed.) is 1) an outlier event, which 2) carries extreme impact, and 3) “makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact.” Elsewhere, Taleb says it is unpredictable, which is why people concoct explanations. Other people use the term in many and various ways, to enfold events missed by most people because they are rare, missed by computer models and/or experts, and to include events they simply seem personally to have misunderstood. The paper also discusses building better ways to assess such events’ background characteristics, emergence dynamics, logics, and other foreseeable attributes. A secondary focus is educating practitioners to better respond - whether to limit damage or to take advantage of - the opportunities that arise from what others are likely to miss or misjudge during and after the emergence of LSLIRE (AKA black swan) events.

Description: An article about redefining risk management, written entirely by ChatGPT.

Description: The goal of this publication is to give insights on some market trends in the insurance industry from an African perspective. Some of such trends include digital innovation, accounting standards (IFRS 9 and IFRS 17), African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Political Violence and Terrorism (PVT) incidents and Covid-19 pandemic exposures as well as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations. It also highlights the success story of the leading pan-African reinsurer, African Reinsurance Corporation, with a message to young professionals that can help increase their odds of success.